Aix

In all our time in France, over two sejours, we had still somehow never made it to Aix-les-Bains. We figured with Stephanie here, it would be a nice chance for us to all see something new, so we packed everyone up and did some autoroute time. When we got to town, we saw barriers and banners up, as if they were setting up for a bike race! I also noticed a lot of guys puttering around on high zoot race bikes with fancy carbon wheels. Since it was almost lunchtime, we found a pizzeria and installed ourself on the patio, even though it was a bit cold. I asked the proprietor what was going on and it turned out that there was indeed about to be a race: a very old criterium: technical, short and lots of laps. In my very brief college racing experience, the crit was probably my most unfavorite discipline. However, it is pretty fun to watch. This one was called the GP de Paques (Easter) and was in its 108th edition. We watched a few laps go by, which was entertaining, but my favorite part was how a few of the riders brought their families. As they passed by, you could see the suffering faces light up slightly at the chorus of "A-LLEZ paPA A-LLEZ-paPA!". It's almost worth trying to race again just for that.

Clmbin!

St Egreve + the newish crag above Petit desert (Chez Roger). Was not so excited about the latter.

Circus

It was circus time again in our little town, which meant that the kids would be going to the circus, whether we liked it or not! I was somewhat underwhelmed by the last circus to visit, and to be perfectly honest was not really looking forward to this one, but such are the duties of a parent. This time, however, Chloe agreed to come with me, which was appreciated. I picked the kids up from the nanny's and quietly whispered into both of the kids ears: "who wants to go to the circus?". I was whispering because I didn't know if the other kids would be going, and I didn't want their parents to hate us after they were dragged to the circus by their kids. Anyway, my plan backfired badly and both kids started joyously prancing around and yelling "Yaaaaaaay Circus! CIRCUS! CIRCUS!" in front of the wide eyes of the other kids. We walked to the circus, which was set up in the small local park, paid for tickets, and entered the tent. Unfortunately there were not many seats left, and the remaining seats (actually all of them were like this) were gymnasium style wooden benches with no back support. Not a big deal, except there was no place to put your feet either! The result was a somewhat painful sitting experience, made more difficult by the fact that I had to hold onto both kids to prevent them from falling into the holes between the benches. Chloe eventually showed up, and the show started amidst the usual fanfare. The circus was better than the previous one that I had been to, and the kids loved it. Zoe in particular had a look of pure delight and excitement the entire time. It started with the introduction of the first of two horses: a somewhat stunted and perhaps optimistically named "Prince" who ran around the ring in circles and would occasionally put a hoof up on the ring. Then there was a bigger horse, a pony, a dromedary and then a camel. Even I thought the camel was cool, albeit a bit malodorous. Next there were various circus-y things like unicycling, swinging from a rope, and Zoe's favorite: the clown. The best part of the clown show, judging from the roar of the children, were the simulated farts. Indeed, it was all she could talk about on the walk home.

Granier

Another cool ride with Hank up the "other" side of the Granier. The tubulars are apparently well glued on :). Also, there was some kind of classic car rally, so we got to watch lots of beautiful old cars drive by.

park, etc

I did a nice ride with Hank up the Granier this morning (video soon) and when I got back, it was time to take care of the little monsters. The first order of business was to go pick up Zoe's new bike, which was locked to the bike stand at her school (her nanny does not have room for it in her car). Alex, Zoe and I walked there, with me walking the bike, and Alex insisting on going in the bike seat despite the fact that I was not actually *riding* the bike. When we were about halfway there, Zoe and I decided that it would be okay if I rode the bike, but only if I went really slowly. This went fine for a while, but even at the slowest pace I could muster without the bike toppling over, Zoe had to run. I found it inexplicably hilarious to have Zoe running in front of and behind me giggling and mock complaining about how I was compelling her to run. She did end up running quite an impressive distance however, and we eventually made it to school, where she unlocked her bike and set off back home. Alex and I were right behind her, and although Zoe is quite good on the bike, in absolute terms it is a little slow going. I therefore needed to put my feet down from time to time, which caused Alex much consternation for some reason. I would put my foot down, and then I would hear "PAPA! pied LA!" and point to the pedal. It actually took me a long time to figure out what exactly he wanted.

This morning I set off on a ride with a Fast Guy from Work (I guess that makes me the Slow Guy from Work) over a bunch of cols. First was Placette: easy grades, nice pavement, good surfaces. It's the standard warmup for many Chartreuse rides from this part of the valley. At the col, it was up to a small hamlet called L'Ayat, then a beautiful descent through gorges to Voiron (where Chartreuse is made, and Bonnat for the chocophiles ). From there, on to Mille Martyrs, a beautiful descent through Miribel, across the plains and then up towards Porte. Before Porte, however, we roll through a gorge that neither of us remembers as being very hard, but this time it is kicking my ass. Lots of extended sections of ten percent -- how could I not remember this?! Next: Porte proper. The last few km of Porte really ground me down. FGfW is long gone, turning the small cogs. My memory was playing evil tricks on me and every bend looked like the penultimate, but in every case (except one!) I was greeted with another long sweeping turn of climbing. Eventually the col appeared, glorius and sun drenched. Then it was descent time again, with a little bit more climbing up to Quaix, and then home. All told it was 102km, 2300m of climbing. Also, I gave up on the climbing challenge. Video below

Poo

Today I went for a long ride. When I came back, Chloe had that "I NEED OUT" look on her face after a little too much time with the feuding kids. Indeed, she was already in her running gear, and was out the door a few minutes after I wheeled my bike in the door. There was some cleaning to do, so I immediately got to work, and didn't even have a chance to take my bib shorts off! Happily, the kids were occupying themselves in their room building a tower with blocks. To find more blocks, Zoe was sending alex under the dresser to retrieve more blocks. A word of explanation here: Alex's most favorite past time is hiding things under other things, and most of the block collection was now under the dresser and crib. Anyway, as I was unloading the washing machine, I noticed an unusual smell. My first instinct was that it was the Diaper Genie, which is next to the washing machine, but I soon realized that it was not coming from there. I walked to the bedroom and gave alex a sniff and discovered that he was the source of the foul aroma. No real surprise there. So I picked him up, brought him to the changing table and to my horror realized that he had poo running down his leg. And not just a surface smear, but big clumps! I immediately went into biocontainment mode. If I had a haz-mat or biohazard suit, it would have been on. As I did not, I removed things from him at arms length and gingerly carried him to the bathtub, where I finished wiping him down, and then started spraying him with the shower. At about this time, Zoe wandered in with an unhappy look on her face and said, "ugh, I'm gonna wash my hands". I thought nothing of it, and then did a double take. "WHY?". I looked down and my heart sank: poo on her arms, poo on her hands, and was that a little fleck of poo in her hair? More stripping down and biohazard work, and into the tub for kid number two. I gave the shower head to Zoe and she started spraying Alex down as I washed every centimeter of their bodies and their hair. They were both laughing the entire time, because poo decontamination is hilarious stuff. Meanwhile I started the poo detective work. They had been in their room, and alex had been … crawling on the floor. Heart sinking moment number three. I let the kids spray each other down (drain OPEN of course) as I crawled, nose to the carpet around the room. I found a few turds ground into the carpet, which required much chemical treatment and several sponges, but I eventually got it all, I think. Who knows though. Chloe got home just as I was drying the second of the two kids off. My account of the excitement was met with smirks and barely contained laughter.

Tintin

I just watched "The Adventures of Tintin -- the Secret of the Unicorn" and here are my impressions, as a lapsed but loyal Hergé fan. First, the visual effects are not only stunning, but admirably faithful to the cartoon. I was happy to see how much like the drawings secondary characters like Alan and Bianca Castafiore were. I was less impressed with Tintin himself, who looked ridiculous. Haddock also was a pretty big departure from the comic, but in his case I thought he looked pretty good anyway. As for the story: butchery. I hate to be "that guy", but I grew up with Tintin. I knew almost every book by heart (except au Congo and the Blue Lotus -- the only books that I did not have). The quality of the lines, coloring and complexity of the stories are what make Tintin transcend a normal comic. Understanding that adaptations are required for film adaptation, it all felt pretty slapped together and arbitrary. I can sort of see why Crab was added: to introduce Haddock. I have no idea why Sakharine was converted into a bad guy though. There was not even a hint of that in the book. What about the Bird brothers? Rastapopoulous? The latter is as good a villain as you could hope for! Finally, very little of Red Rackham's Treasure made it into the movie -- why? The story arc of hunting for treasure on an island, only to find it back in Marlinspike is wonderful and the film is poorer for leaving it out. I was also sad to see no hint of Calculus... it was after all the story that introduced him. Props for using the right font for the credits though.

A stupid plan

I somewhat foolishly signed up for a challenge on Strava:

Riders, do you think you can climb the cumulative elevation of five Spring Classics in 47 days? Do you think you can do it not just once, not twice, but three times? Now is your time to find out. Specialized and Strava challenge you to climb a grand total of 105,312 feet (32,100 meters) from March 15 to April 30.
The Classic courses may be better known for their distances or questionable pavement, but here are the cold, hard, climbing facts:

Milan-San Remo - 6,260 feet (1,908 meters)
Tour of Flanders - 5,709 feet (1,740 meters)
Paris-Roubaix - 3,259 feet (993 meters)
Liège–Bastogne–Liège - 10,883 feet (3,317 meters)
Amstel Gold - 8,993 feet (2,741 meters)

Do you have what it takes? If so, a custom Specialized and Strava commemorative water bottle and surprise finisher gift is yours if you can climb this set of Spring Classics three times, not to mention the gargantuan bragging rights you’ll earn. This challenge is going to take some serious guts, but you'll get some serious glory. Good luck to all!

No, I am not doing it for the bottle, but for the challenge. However, as every day passes and I get further into the hole, I am confronted with the impossibility of finding time for all 105 THOUSAND feet. As of today I have 10,305 feet climbed. It's not looking good.

Galette du Roi

We all went over to Simon and Vanessa's for galette du Roi: it turns out that it's not that difficult to make! The kids loved it (especially Zoe, who was surreptitiously slipped the slide with the toy -- thank you Simon!), as did I. I think I scarfed down three slices.

Lab Ski Day!

The auto incrementing of runs was clearly broken

and so it begins

The Great Tubular Experiment begins

A new bike

One of the hazards of having Zoe accompany me on my trips to the bike store is that she found the kid bike section. Soon enough, as soon as we entered the store, she would run off to the kid corner, run back to me, tell me there was something she had to show me, and then lead me by the hand to here bike of choice: the Trek Little Pudd'in, with training wheels, a purple basket embroidered with flowers and a matching bell. "That one", she would whisper to me as if it would disappear if she spoke in her normal voice. We did this several times until Chloe and I realized that it was time to get it. It was spring after all,and she DOES actually love riding her bike. So today we went to buy it, and there was a new bike there. This one was pretty similar, really, but all of a sudden the Little Pudd'in seemed somehow less exciting to her. Chloe and I wer mostly fed up at this point, so we just went with it. After coming back home, Zoe then went on no fewer than three bike riding expeditions.

Carnaval

We had good year for this year's Carnaval. I decided to try to make samuraii costumes for the kids (or at least an approximation of Samuraii costumes). A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, my dad did the same thing for me. These costumes didn't turn out quite as well as his, and I was a bit worrite because the paint took two days to dry, but it all turned out in the end!




We did a little procession around town, with Madame Carnivale loaded onto the back of a truck. Then it was back to the park, where Madame Carnivale was ignited.

Sledding

Today we went with Vero and her kids to a new (to us) place: The small ski area near St. Nizier. It's *fabulous* and I'm sad that we only discovered it at the end of the season. There's a moving walkway to bring you to the top, and then you can either ski or sled down. Alex, who is normally a bit reticent about the cold, and cold weather activities, absolutely loved it, as did Zoe.







Here's a little movie:

pee in the router

Tonight chloe was off shopping while I was watching the kids. Zoe had taken it upon herself to paint small scraps of paper towels and then affix them to the wall above the now non functional iMac with tape. This was absolutely fine with me, as it allowed me to veg out on the couch and relax a little bit. My couch-bliss was soon interrupted, however. All of a sudden, zoe announced "I GO PEEPEE IN MY PANTS", to which I responded "WHAT? Nooooooooo", but it was too late. A few milliseconds later, a torrent of pee began rushing out of her pant leg and into the top of the DSL router (her foot was perched right next to it). The lights on the router immediately went out and the now sodden router emitted a sickening fizzing noise. A small puff of steam or smoke emanated from the back of the router, where the DC power supply comes in. Not good. Later that night, I emptied the router of pee and then drove into lab to use some de-ionized water to wash the printed circuit board. This was followed up by a thorough air drying. Amazingly, the router came back to life! I thought it was curtains for the router when I saw the smoke/steam, and was already looking up the words for our imminent call to customer service for a new router.

peuil, the video

Peuil

I did another fun ride with Hank today -- this time to Peuil, where we have gone bouldering many times. I always thought that the road up there might be a nice ride, and it turned out that Hank had done it before. We parked around espace Comboire, took the beautiful new pedestrian/cycle bridge over the Drac to the golf course, and we found ourselves on the climb in a matter of minutes. My legs didn't feel great after two days of riding, but eventually they loosened up. When we got onto the Peuil climb, I was definitely suffering; it's steep, but beautiful at this time of year. Because there are no leaves, you can really see a lot more than you would in the Spring and Summer. In any event, the weather was beautiful and we reached the top in good form. I actually felt kind of sorry when we hit the dead end because I wanted more climbing. From there it was a short descent to a bridging dirt road to another red pumice stained road, and then back to the col de Cossey. There was a strong cross wind along the col, and I was getting thrown around like a leaf. It can really feel exposed out there sometimes on a bike.

Placette, Grande Ratz

I found a nice road up above Layat today which seems to end in a small cluster of houses called the Grand Ratz. On the way back, I took the vieux chemin, which is a blast on a road bike. Way better than facing oncoming traffic on the route nationale.

Climbing

Our cold/crappy weather Sunday ritual is this: take the kids to the gym around noon when most locals are bringing their kids home for lunch. Chloe and I take 20 minute turns playing "Monster" with the kids and belaying Zoe while the other parent boulders alone. When the kids get worn out, we prop sit them down in front of the iPad and boulder together.

A flower box!

Planfay

Rode up to Planfay. On the descent, I encountered this:



which had apparently fallen onto the road after I passed this particular road cut. Happily, it did not fall on me during my descent!


Shortly afterwards, I was at an intersection waiting for a light (yes, occasionally we cyclists wait for lights!) and my foot got jammed behind my wheel. This is known as wheel overlap, and really sucks. The result was that I fell over, much to the amusement of everyone who was nearby. Of course, after I got up and dusted myself off I saw a friend from work just down the road, who had witnessed the whole embarrassing incident.

Later on, I saw this along the road




Not good. It looked like it had happened a while ago, and crew was there getting ready to pull it out of the ditch.

Placette

After the freezing cold, I could not take another day of not riding, so I went up placette. It was -6 at the top, without the wind, and slush + snow everywhere. Dicey.

commute

Even in the cold (and yes, it was VERY cold), my bike commute is pretty incredible. What a privilege.

Par-tay!

no party is complete with out a Les Alpages Cheese plate (brought by Francois, to Lolo and Vero's shindig)

Surf de rando!

Dusted off the split, found the skins (glue was not great, but good enough), and skinned up a few hundred meters of powder above mont saint martin. For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, you put climbing skins on the underside of your skis/board, which allow you to ascend, then peel them off and ski back down.

Because I would like to avoid dying in an avalanche, I was going up very low angle paths -- 15 % at most, and in the trees. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot os snow cover, and I ended up hitting limestone rocks the size of basketballs on the way down. Even so, it was lovely being out there in the snow-enhanced silence of the forest.

Crepe day!

Today, Zoe makes crepes at school, so we are supposed to bring an egg. Hopefully it won't explode on the bike ride.

Omigami

At some point in my childhood, Origami (the art of japanese paper folding) became the cool thing to do. We were all suddenly swept up in a wave of brightly colored square paper, cranes, boxes, frogs and even more ambitious objects. Those of us with less innate folding skills fingers were relegated to the production of origami balls and simple birds. Of course, when other people in our classes would come to school with flocks of delicate interlinked cranes, my pals and I knew that it was time to get serious. Getting serious meant buying origami books. Origami books meant that we were introduced to the bewildering world of origami instructions. I am convinced that there is some unspoken rule among Origami instruction authors that the diagrams be as obtuse and frustrating as possible. I suspect that such authors are sadists and psychopaths. Anyway, the instructions always start out with the square of paper that looks comfortingly like the paper that you would have in front of you. Then there would be a series of increasingly complex intermediates, and at some point (usually quite soon), you would realize that your little crumpled ball of paper with the odd pointy crease did not look anything like the instructions. You would dutifully unfold, refold and if you were lucky get one step further. All the while your gaze would be drawn to the final product. Sometimes it was the only image rendered in full color. It would be there taunting you.

Why do I bring this up? Zoe and Alex recently received some beautiful origami paper, and my job is to fold them into "Omigami", as Zoe calls them. As I have become more ambitious in my folds, I have re-experienced the frustration and inadequate finger dexterity of my youth. It's like Proust's madeline, but I'm not eating anything, and with frustration. How can I refuse though, when Alex comes trundling into the room shaking a beautiful gold and red print origami paper at me with expectant eyes, asking for a oiseau.

Zoe: Maaaaamaaaaaaa
Mama: What?
Zoe: I have to go caaaacaaaa!
Mama: Didn't you just go caca? How many cacas do you have?
Zoe Three! I have three more cacas!

Take the most of him with red meat

A ride in Tullins

Another great ride with Hank today in the foothills around Tullins. Today's was a little bit different in that we explored a new (to both of us) road, and ended up on some muddy cobbly dirt roads… on our road bikes, with skinny tires! It was a total blast, and I could see Hank go into mountain bike mode, concentrating on the line and getting the power down. We crossed paths with an offroader and some guy out walking his dog, both of whom looked at us with some bemusement -- custom Ti and full carbon road machines are not typical in the forest. From there it was a cool descent on excellent pavement back to Tullins.

col de Romeyer

I went for a long ride through the Vercors today. I underestimated the amount of climbing it would be so it took a bit longer than planned, but it was pretty spectacular. Things started out well with a tailwind along the bike path to St. Gervais. I hooked up with some members of a local club on the path, which cut down on the boredom of the bike path for a bit. St Gervais was still in the shade when I got there, but that's where the climb starts so there was plenty of opportunity to warm up. It is beautiful scenery almost the entire way up to the col, past waterfalls and huge cliff faces. The last time I had been through here was ten years ago, when Chloe and I first moved to France (and before we moved back to the states) and our friend lolo took us on a drive through the Vercors: Pont-en-Royans, Presles, Romeyer -- I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of alpine meadows and three hundred and sixty degree limestone faces. It felt pretty much the same to me this time. If you're ever in the Grenoble area, a trip through the gorges is a must. Anyway, everything was great up until the tunnel, which was a bit terrifying: a half km of pure darkness. I have a small headlight on my bike for just these occasions, and it was barely able to cast enough light to see. The tunnel is also extremely narrow, which adds to the fun and spookiness. All I know is that I cranked through that thing as fast as I could. As I finally emerged from the tunnel, a breeze swept by the mouth of the tunnel, carrying flakes of rime fluttering through the air and into an intense beam of sunlight.

After stopping to refill my bottle at the col, it was back through more gorges, Lans-en-vercors, Engins and back into the valley.



90km, 1400 meters of climbing

Mont Saint-Martin death match, part II!

Today, I did the runner vs bike thing up the mont saint martin but with my friend Martin, and this time, NO DAMN handicaps. This was especially true because I know he is a super strong runner. As luck would have it though, he had a hacking cough, so I caught him on the sixth or seventh switchback. Anyway, another beautiful sunny and clear day!

strange things you find on the bike path, part V.

Gentlemen, start your saws and chippers!

Col de Cossey

at lunch. It's not a high or difficult col, but easily doable from work in ~1 hour and is a nice change from the usual Proveysieux loops. Yes, we live in a cycling mecca

If you don't want a four year old and two year old operating your cherry picker

Don't park them on the sidewalk

Montaud

coooold on the way down

Zoe

after I showed her tonights dinner (tortilla): "Yaaay, you're a good cooker-daddy!"

RACE!

Today I had the smart idea for Chloe and I to race up to mont saint-martin. It is steep (10% avg), which usually favors runners, but we decided to handicap her since after all I'm on a friggin bike! We looked up our best times, started chloe off 10 minutes before me, and then… chloe beat her best time by three minutes. I, on the other hand posted my third best time. So I got taken to school, but it was pretty fun anyway, even if I never saw her on the way up. I like the concept though -- we'll have to get more runner/cyclist friends/coworkers involved next time. View from the top:

view from my commute this morning

Cycling goals this year

Last year I think I rode ~5000km and 82,000 vert meters. I rode through a lot of really beautiful places, even if I didn't do very many of the "prestige" cols (except Galibier, and that was from the easier side). I had a few modest goals this year on the local cols: placette in under 20, mont saint-martin in under 30, Narbonne in under 20. These were all just barely met. This year: Proveysieux in under 20, which will require a lot of work, Montaud in under 30 (ditto) and try to improve my endurance and do more than 100k vert meters. Those are the nerdy, numbers goals. The more important goals are to do more beautiful rides, and finally ride up Ventoux and the Alpe D'huez. I'd also like to do the Finestre.

Climbing wise, the usual: do more beautiful climbs on immaculate rock. I have some long standing goals like Rackham le Rouget and Hirondelle des Fauborgs, and the big "M", but nothing pressing.

here's hoping you meet your sporting goals this year as well!